


Fostering

by lizbetann



Series: Pike's Return [1]
Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Adventure, Drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-12-12
Updated: 2001-12-12
Packaged: 2017-10-09 06:47:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 16,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/84210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizbetann/pseuds/lizbetann





	1. Office Politics

August 2001

"I am," Cordelia said in awful, portentous tones, "extremely glad that I cut my hair."

She was lying back in her chair, staring up at the ceiling of the office, immobile. The heat in the old hotel was stifling. Built in 1928, it predated things like air conditioners. And they didn't have the money to install central air. They barely had the money to pay the power bills they were running up now, with fifteen fans pointed at them at all times. Not with trying to fight off Wolfram &amp; Hart's attempt to take over the building.

"I can say, I haven't had a problem with hair," Gunn said from where he sat sharpening weapons. He put down a broadsword and picked up his favorite hubcap axe, drawing a sharpening stone along the edge.

"Yeah, easy for you to say, Mr. Clean."

Groaning, Cordelia hauled herself upright from the decadent sprawl she'd been perfecting, to sit up at the computer and start tapping keys. Work, at least, was going fine as more and more people turned to Angel Investigations for help. They even had a bit more backup, in the person of Kate, who'd shown up one day and never left. She was no longer a cop, but she was not able to stop helping people. Kicked off the force, she'd taken the best option she had. She'd even gone so far as to get a private investigator's license, so that they had some official status.

Kate had come back into the office just in time to see Cordelia's slow rise to verticality. "Nice to know you're awake, alert, and ready," she said, tossing a file down on Cordelia's desk.

"Hey. Not my boss. My boss," she said, pointing at Wesley, who was seated at a table researching, Fred beside him. "Not my boss," she enunciated carefully, pointing at Kate. "Difference. Get it?"

"Got it. By the way, I need these in a half an hour," Kate said, nodding to the papers she'd just dropped.

"Do we have to go through the boss/not boss thing again? 'Cause you can type up your own papers."

"I figured you were the clerical help."

"Office manager. Off-ice man-a-ger. Which is actually meaning something now that we've got enough people here to count as an office."

"Well, if you'd stop hogging the computer to check your beauty horoscope, I could type up the papers myself."

Cordelia rose immediately. "All yours. Although, not that I'm trying to say you're slow or anything, but laptop? Pretty portable. You could have picked it up yourself."

With a final glare, Kate sat down in Cordelia's vacated seat. Having gotten exactly what she wanted, which was an invigorating bickering match with Kate and to get out of typing duty, Cordelia wandered over to the research table. "How's it going?"

"Slow." Wesley sighed and put down the pencil he was taking notes with. "There just isn't that much information on Kalva demons. Not terribly interesting creatures, although capable of doing a lot of damage."

"Need help?"

"No, thank you. This is mostly just wrapping things up, and Fred and I have it in hand."

Fred beamed up from behind her glasses. "Sure. Research. Research, I can do. Words stay the same on the page. Kinda nice."

"Lacking subjects," Cordelia muttered, then shook her head. "Picking it up from her."

Fred was another change. With Fred around, and since she was so not the punchy-fighty type, they did have someone on research full-time. They had a nice little organized office. Wesley, boss; Cordelia, actually running everything; Kate, investigator; Gunn, enforcer; and Fred, researcher. Between the five of them, they had it covered.

Cordelia wandered out into the lobby, peering upstairs. And then there was the sixth of them. Angel was like a wind-up doll. Give him a direct order, ask him for help, and he functioned. But he seemed incapable of acting on his own initiative. Ever since they got back from the funeral, he'd been...

"Vacant," Cordelia said, and sighed.

"I wasn't really looking for a room," a strange voice behind her said.

Cordelia turned sharply to face a young guy, sandy-haired all-American type. Well, except for the goatee and the look in his eye that matched Xander in one of his less stable moods. He looked like a poster boy for a 1-800-COLLECT commercial. "Actually, I was looking for Angel Investigations."

"Found it," Cordelia said cheerfully. He didn't exactly look like a paying customer, but she'd learned to get over worrying about that. Mostly. "How can we help you?"

A small figure moved from behind the guy. She was about ten, with dark hair in a high ponytail, and the fearless stance of a street kid. She tilted her head and stared at Cordelia, totally unselfconsciously, considering, thinking, analyzing. Her calm, clear eyes were mature without being old. The guy put his hand on her head and she accepted it there with the complete physical confidence that siblings get.

Without warning, the world popped, the bubble's burst deafening her. Cordelia took three stumbling steps, then lost all track of up or down as the vision took her: vampires, more vampires, and still more vampires. And blood, which wasn't surprising with all those vampires.

And that little girl, looking at her with those calm eyes, now the glowing gold of a undead bloodsucker.

Cordelia came back to herself on the floor, being supported by the strange guy. The girl was kneeling on her other side, anxiously looking at her. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"Fine," Cordelia managed to grit out. "Just fine." She reached out and touched the girl's cheek. Smooth and warm. Not a vampire. Which was obvious because of the daylight streaming into the lobby, but she just wanted to check. "I... um... who are you?"

"I'm Amanda," the girl said, helping the guy boost Cordelia to her feet. The guy took most of her weight, but he didn't brush off his little sister's help.

"Nice to meet you, Amanda," Cordelia said. She liked kids -- when they were straightforward, non-screamy, non-whiny, non-brats like this one.

"I heard voices, Cordelia." Wesley and Gunn emerged into the lobby. "Can we help?" Wesley said mildly.

"Everything's good. Just had a little problem with my vision," Cordelia said, stressing 'vision' lightly. She tilted her head toward Amanda.

"I'm Wesley Wyndham-Price," Wesley said in that tone that people took as either pompous or comforting, depending on if he was pissing them off or reassuring them. "Can I help you?"

"I sure as hell hope so." The guy grinned, holding out his hand. "I'm Pike. And I really could use some help."


	2. Checking In

Amanda kept one ear open as she prowled the lobby, listening to Pike's patter. He'd been worried about a couple of close calls they'd had over the last few months, and said that they had to go to LA. Go *back* to LA, he'd said absently.

It was the first time he'd ever indicated anything about his pre-her past. Amanda wasn't terribly curious, but it did make her wonder. He'd been there for her since she was little, just a kid. Over the last four years he'd been everything to her. He could have come from LA or New York or the moon for all she cared. He'd always taught her to focus on the future, not the past.

He was telling the story they agreed on; he was her older brother, something creepy seemed to be following them, they'd heard that Angel Investigations dealt well with creeps. The place had filled up as people filed out of the office, and with a final check down to the lobby, Amanda started climbing the stairs. She wasn't used to a lot of people around, at least not ones that might pay attention to her. Pike saw her go up and signaled her that it was okay, and she kept going.

"This is so cool," she said to herself, grinning. There'd been a lot of motels over the last four years, but nothing as big as this. And the echoing emptiness just rocked. She loved the thought she could just start madly twirling, or practice one of the katas Pike had taught her, and no one would stare. No one would *see*.

Once up from the main lobby, the stairs stopped being decorative and became functional. Amanda opened a door to get to the third level, and even the faint voices from the lobby got cut off. Once she hit the hallway, Amanda closed her eyes and just reveled in the quiet.

"Hey," a voice said, and Amanda started violently.

He was tall guy dressed all in black, but he didn't look like the Goths Pike sometimes hit up for information. He looked as startled to see her as she was to have someone pop out. Amanda sized up his expression and his attitude, classified him as a non-threat, and relaxed. A bit.

"Do you live here?" she asked.

"Huh?"

She tilted her head to indicate the hallway. "Do you live here?"

"Yeah, I do."

"That's so cool. I'd love to have a whole hotel to myself."

The guy hunkered down to her eye level. She was pretty tall for her age, so he ended up a little shorter than her. "I don't exactly have it to myself."

"Oh. Are those your friends downstairs?"

"Yeah. They... work with me."

"Oh, I get it. Angel Investigations. Who's Angel? Or is it, like, a guardian angel thing?"

"Kinda. But I'm Angel."

"I'm Amanda. Pike brought me here because someone's trying to get me." She shrugged as she said it. She wasn't stupid enough to not worry about it -- she remembered being kidnapped from her parents way too well -- but she figured Pike was taking care of the worrying bit.

The guy seemed frozen. There wasn't the false smile on his face that a lot of adults wore when they talked to kids. She liked him for that, but was starting to get freaked by his total stillness. There was something weird here she didn't understand. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Come on. We should go back downstairs and find out what's going on."

"I already know what's going on. You can go back downstairs," she offered.

"Fine, I'll go back downstairs to find out what's going on, and you go back downstairs because..."

"Because I'll get into trouble? Because I'll hurt myself? Please. I can take care of myself, at least, in a completely deserted building."

"It's not completely deserted," Angel said, getting to his feet. "I'm here."

"Oh, yeah, and you're so scary." She grinned at him, totally aware she was being a brat.

He didn't exactly smile, but he seemed less... glowery. "Come on," he said again, putting his hand between her shoulder blades and pushing her toward the stairs. His wrist pressed against her bare neck, and Amanda froze.

Totally cold. In this never-even-heard-of-air-conditioning place. Vampire. Shit.

Her brain clicked into gear. "If you see or sense a vampire, run. If you can't run, fight until you can." Pike's voice echoed in her ears. "Don't try to kill it. Someday you're going to be able to kick my butt at this, kid, but for now, run, find me. Got it?"

"Got it," Amanda breathed. The vampire behind her wasn't holding her, so she gathered herself, kicked back at his kneecap to slow him down, and took off for the stairs at a dead run. She heard him grunt and fall behind her, and then the connecting door was shut between them and she was rattling down the stairs so fast that her vision looked like The Blair Witch Project.

She burst into the second floor hallway, heading for the main staircase, screaming, "Pike! Pike!" at the top of her lungs. He met her at the top of the staircase, face set in furious determination, crossbow out and aimed over her shoulder. She ducked behind him, and then turned to face down into the lobby, watching his back.

Given how fast vampires could move, it seemed to take a long time before she heard the footsteps. "It's okay," the vampire said steadily. "I'm not going to hurt the girl. Or anyone."

"Uh-huh," Pike said, and Amanda felt the vibration as the crossbow went off.

She peered around Pike, keeping one eye on the group below, to see that the vampire -- was that really Angel? -- had ducked aside, but come no closer.

"I mean it. I'm not going to hurt anyone."

"Reinforcements!" Amanda shouted, warning Pike of the crew downstairs.

"Hey! Do *not* shoot the guy who's going to help you." The dark-haired woman -- Cordelia, she'd said her name was -- was bounding up the stairs without a weapon. The black guy following her more than made up for it with the weird ax he was carrying. The rest of the group stayed below.

"He's a vampire," Amanda told her. "Duh."

"Easy for you to say, kid," Cordelia shot back.

Pike turned to stare at the woman as she came even with him. "You mean, *this* is Angel? It's not just some stray undead bastard who's broken in? Angel's a *vampire*?"

"This is Angel. Short version, good guy, vampire with a soul, helping the helpless. No kill. You get the long version when you put the crossbow down. Got it?"

Pike kept half his attention on her and half on Angel. Amanda focused all her attention on the guy with the ax. And waited.

Finally, Pike lowered the crossbow. "I'm trusting a lot to what I've heard of you guys," he said quietly. "I'm trusting everything. That's a vampire. You say he's good. I need help, so I'll believe you. But I'll tell you this, if anything goes wrong, if anything happens to Amanda, I'll take you out, any way I can."

Amanda pressed herself harder against Pike's back. He didn't go for the mushy stuff very often, but she always knew what she meant to him. Hearing it out loud embarrassed her, and pleased her.

Cordelia blew out a relieved breath. "Okay, got it. You don't kill us, we don't kill you. This is of the good. Now, can we all go downstairs and discuss this like normal people?"

"Who's normal?" Pike murmured as he descended the stairs, his body between Angel and Amanda.

"If everybody spends all day picking apart everything I say, we're never going to get anywhere...."


	3. Formal Investigation

"You are so full of BS," Kate said evenly, cutting into Pike's story.

"Excuse me?" Pike raised his eyebrows, affecting a who-me? innocence that Kate didn't buy for a minute. "Something with scales and more arms than a Siamese octopus tried to grab my little sister off the beach when we were vacationing in your lovely city, and you're calling me a liar?"

Kate smiled. Oh, it was the stupid things you missed doing. Waiting in dark cars with cold coffee and the desperate need for a rest room. Picking through a pile of trash for the rusty needle in a haystack. Interrogating suspects who thought that you didn't have a brain, peeling them open and getting the truth out. "Yeah," she said. "You're a liar."

"We're here to help," Wesley hastened to say, shooting a sidelong glance at Kate. She could always trust him to play good cop.

"But we can't help you if you're not straight with us," Gunn finished. Kate hid a smile, focusing on the kid in front of her. Gunn thought like she did, straightforward and practical. Leave the mystical stuff to Wesley and Cordelia and Angel -- and, now, Fred. She and Gunn functioned much better with monsters they could see.

"We want to help you," Cordelia said steadily. "Let us help you."

Kate kept fighting down the urge to order everyone out. She knew how to interrogate someone one-on-one, or with a fellow cop who would follow your leads. This group deal was something she wasn't used to. But she wasn't the ranking member here.

The kid stood beside the guy, Pike. Kate had checked her over visually, looking for signs of abuse. Another habit of the force she couldn't break, another reality that the world could be ugly without monsters. She didn't believe for one fraction of a second that Pike was Amanda's brother, but the girl didn't act like an abused child. Which wasn't proof positive, but it meant Kate wasn't going to take him out and get the girl away from him at that moment.

It did beg the question of how a twenty-something guy had ended up with a ten-year-old girl. If he wasn't a family member, no court in their right mind would give him guardianship.

Her brain was running at a million miles an hour, clicking through all those possibilities, while she patiently waited for Pike to speak again. She felt alive, more than she had in her entire last year on the force. More than since her father had died.

Pike turned his back on the group, staring up to the second floor where Angel was. Amanda glanced up at him, and then back at the group. Kate met her stare, and waited.

Pike turned back around, and put his hands on Amanda's shoulders, holding her in front of him. Protecting her, Kate realized, like he had before. With his body, an action as unthinking as breathing. He'd die for the kid. "Amanda's in danger," he said quietly. "Something's trying to get her. I don't know what. It follows us wherever we go. We've probably brought it here, and I would care, if it wasn't for the fact that I can't stop it alone. I need to protect her, and I need help."

"Vampires," Cordelia said.

"I guess, but I don't know," Pike said impatiently.

"No, listen to me. Vampires. I... I have visions, okay? There's some group that's trying to get --" Cordelia cut herself off. "Amanda, maybe you should...."

"I'm staying. I'm listening." Amanda didn't move. When Cordelia didn't continue, Amanda said, "I need to know. Don't just say I'm a kid and lie to me. I need to know."

"Tell us," Pike said. His face was set.

Cordelia bit her lip, then continued. "It's a group of vampires. They want her, specifically. Not to kill her, though. They want to make her a vampire."

In the shattered silence that fell, Kate saw Amanda reach up to touch one of Pike's hands on her shoulder. She was terrified, poor kid. But who wouldn't be? "Sick bastards," Kate muttered, mostly to herself.

"Why would they make a kid a vampire?" Gunn asked.

"Too much Anne Rice, maybe," Cordelia muttered.

"Why her?" Wesley wondered. "I recall from Giles' writings that the Anointed One was a child, but that was to fulfill a specific prophesy, that a child would lead the Slayer to her doom. Perhaps there is another prophesy...." Wesley rose as if to go to the office for a book, and then hauled himself back. "Right. Perhaps we'd best know all the details possible "

"Something's chasing Amanda. That's pretty much all I know to tell you."

"How long?" Kate asked.

Pike shrugged. "At least four years. Probably not any longer than that, because if they had been going for her while she was still at home, they'd have gotten her. All I know is --"

"Bloody hell," Wesley breathed suddenly, breaking into Pike's words. "You son of a bitch."

Kate whipped her head around to focus on the mild-mannered Brit. He was glaring at Pike with murder in his eye. "Yo, Wesley, want to fill us in?"

"This bastard," Wesley bit off, "stole away a young girl from the Watchers who had been sent to train her."

"I," Pike said, in exactly the same tone, "helped a little girl who was running away from the people who had kidnapped her from her family. Exactly who is the criminal here?"

"Whoa, slow down." Cordelia jumped up and separated Wesley and Pike, who were advancing on each other. "Wesley, you first. Explain."

"Four years ago, a team of Watchers went to take into their keeping a young girl, Amanda Willis," Wesley said in a precise, emotionless voice. "The girl disappeared, and it was assumed that she'd run home to her family. But when they got there --"

"Don't." Amanda put her hands up to cover her ears. "Don't. Don't. DON'T!"

Pike dropped to his knees and Amanda wrapped her arms around his neck. He rocked her as she shook with silent sobs. Wesley looked sickened with what he had been about to relate before Amanda. It was a long time before anyone spoke.

"Would you like to come upstairs with me?" Fred, who'd been quiet the whole time, asked. "Just upstairs. We'll keep Angel company. It's not fun to be alone."

Pike seemed unwilling to let Amanda go, but she raised her face from his shoulder. "I'm not running away," she said fiercely.

Fred shook her head. "No, not running away. You'll be here. Be close. But it's okay to not be *right* here." She rose to her feet and held out her hand, and after a long moment, Amanda took it.

Kate waited until Amanda and Fred were up the stairs. "I take it what happened wasn't pretty?"

"I assumed the bastards that had kidnapped Amanda in the first place had done it," Pike said.

"And we assumed she'd died in the massacre there," Wesley said.

"Okay, two questions," Kate said. "Who are these Watchers, and why would they kidnap a little girl?"

"You don't... oh, I suppose it was never necessary to tell." Wesley sighed. "Into each generation is born a Slayer. The one girl in all the world with the strength and the skill to fight vampires. Although, given the oddities that have occurred in the last few years, we currently have two Slayers."

"Had," Cordelia said softly. She shot a glance upstairs, and Kate began putting pieces together. But she waited for confirmation.

Wesley nodded. "Had. You've met one, Faith. The other is the girl whose funeral we attended two months ago."

"Buffy," Kate said, and was cut off by Pike's groan.

"Oh, damnit." He closed his eyes. "Damnit," he cursed again. "Buffy's dead?"

"Okay, we're getting a little too weird here," Cordelia said. "You knew Buffy?"

"Yeah. Years ago. In LA. She's how I found out about vampires, and how to fight them. She left to go live in this middle of nowhere town up the coast. I didn't think she'd be in danger there."

Cordelia shook her head. "I'm sorry, but Sunnydale? On this thing called a Hellmouth."

"God. I hadn't thought about her in so long, but...." Pike just shook his head.

"To answer the second part of your question, Kate," Wesley continued, "Watchers guide and train potential Slayers, from as early childhood as possible. And, unless I very much miss my guess, that little girl upstairs will be a Slayer someday."


	4. In Common

Fred had missed a lot of things in the five years she'd been in Pylea. Tacos. Tacos were definitely high on that list, but there were a million little things that she'd longed for. Shampoo. CDs. People to talk to, who considered that she might have a brain.

She hadn't been back long, but she'd had all those given back to her, and more. She'd also been reminded from the first moment that she'd set foot in the hotel that would become the center of her new world that the real world brought discomfort and pain and pesky annoyances and questions from authorities about where'd she'd been for five years.

She'd hovered on the fringes of the tragedy that had shaken Angel. She'd watched as Cordelia softened his existence, as she did for no one else, and analyzed, tried to remember normal/not normal.

She'd not said anything when Cordelia had assumed Angel didn't want to come downstairs to listen to Pike's story, and concocted a reason. When Fred had brought Amanda upstairs, Angel had not been listening to what was going on downstairs, but had been slouching against the wall, staring straight ahead. He'd looked up when Fred and Amanda had approached him.

"Hey. Um, Angel?" Amanda said hesitantly. "I'm... I'm sorry I kicked you."

Angel had relaxed. "No problem. Good kick, by the way."

"Thanks." Amanda's face was still streaked with the tears that she had shed downstairs, but she seemed to be refusing to think about it. Fred wanted to pat her head, partly for support, partly to feel the silky hair beneath her hand, but stopped herself. Not normal. She'd learn. She'd remember.

"I thought we could come upstairs and... sit?" Fred asked. She'd meant to say, "Keep you company," but Angel didn't want company. She was so hyper-sensitive to the people around her, after being alone to long, that Angel's grieving was glowing out of him. She tried to imagine wanting to be alone, and didn't understand. Then again, she'd been alone when she'd wanted to have company. Maybe if there were too many people around, you'd want to be alone. Had she always wanted what she didn't have? She couldn't remember.

"How'd you dodge the crossbow?" Amanda asked Angel, with the artless focus of a ten year old on a subject that fascinated her.

"I'm used to people shooting at me. And you're... Pike wasn't shooting to kill. He wanted to make a point."

Amanda nodded. "He's good. He doesn't miss. Well, hardly ever. He's teaching me. He says that someday, I'll have to do this."

Fred felt/saw Angel flinch back. She'd kept one ear back on the conversation downstairs, and realized that Angel had come to whatever conclusion had stunned everyone downstairs... whatever a Slayer was.

"How come..." Amanda paused and bit her lip. "How come you're a vampire, but you're a good guy?"

Angel sighed and sat down on a tattered armchair. Amanda perched on a small coffee table in front of him. "It's a long story," Angel said. "The short version is, I was meant to help people, and I do. I try."

"Me too," Amanda said eagerly. Wanting to not be alone, Fred wondered while still listening to what was going on below, wanting to share something in common? Or was that her, wanting to not be alone, wanting to share something in common with someone else? "Pike says that someday I'll be able to fight bad guys better than he does."

"Does he fight bad guys a lot?" Angel asked. Fred hid a smile behind a curtain of hair. Curious little girl managed where the rest of them hadn't, to actually get Angel to be interested enough in the world to ask a question.

"Not a lot," Amanda said, shrugging. "Usually, he's trying to keep me away from it, but sometimes he'll kick something's butt if it's in our area."

"Where's that?"

Amanda shrugged again, the hunching of her narrow shoulders more eloquent than words. "Wherever. I mean, we move around a lot. We were down in New Orleans last, and before that in Seattle and before that." Shrug. "We have to keep ahead of the cops as well as... what's chasing me."

Ping. Fred could have sworn that there was an audible chime in the room as Angel's total attention was engaged, focused on the girl in front of him.

"What's chasing you?" he asked, as gently as he had treated Fred in Pylea. When he wasn't being a monster, that is. Somewhere, she felt a pang of jealousy, as if she had ever thought that the gentleness was for her, rather than for her innocence in the situation. She sighed and let the jealousy go.

Amanda swallowed. The shrug had stuck inward and become a huddle. "Cordelia said it was vampires. That they wanted to make me a vampire." Fred saw her look up through a fringe of lashes at Angel. In a few years, this kid was going to break male hearts with that look. It looked like Amanda was damaging Angel's shell already. It wasn't flirtatious. It was honest, direct. She remembered girls in her high school who had employed that look to good effect, not-so-fragile southern belles.

Not to mention that if Cordelia had said it, it meant she had a vision, which meant, from what Fred had picked up, it was required that Angel do something. The Powers That Be, the rest of them called them. But not Kate. Not after she'd had a laughing fit at Wesley when Wesley had casually mentioned them, and then Kate and Cordelia had a screaming fight. Kate didn't exactly believe/not believe. She was in between. Kind of like Fred was. In between was the worst, but there was no way to get from one point to another without being in between for awhile.

"They won't. Not if I can stop them," Angel said quietly. "I'll do the best I can." He rose to his feet, and turned toward the staircase. And stopped. And tugged against whatever chain held him. And moved forward.

Fred understood. And all she could think to do was smile at him encouragingly, and follow him and Amanda down the stairs.


	5. Taking Stock

Once upon a time, long, long ago, in a kingdom across the sea, there was a young man who knew everything. He was intelligent, handsome, accomplished, everything that his father could want.

Three years later, Wesley sat at his desk, put his head in his hands, and wondered where the hell that young man went.

Every certainty he'd had about himself had been shattered. He'd been the brilliant young Watcher, younger than any Watcher sent to guide a Slayer. If part of that was because his father was so powerful... well, he'd determined that he'd prove himself worthy of the trust that had been placed in him.

Sighing, Wesley raised his head and picked up the cup of tea he'd left on his desk, sipping at it. He made a face; it had gone cold and bitter since he'd brewed it. He had been the worst possible choice for an intelligent, independent, experienced Slayer, and had unforgivably alienated an insecure, less-experienced Slayer. With dogged persistence, he had shattered whatever trust either one could have had in him, all in the name of doing what was "right."

In the end, he'd capitulated, asked for help, offered his own. It had been accepted, but he had not. And in doing so, he'd turned his back on his father, the Watcher Council, everything he'd spent his entire life working for.

"Deep thoughts?" Kate asked from the doorway.

"If ruminating on the mistakes you've made in your life counts as deep, than yes." With a wave of the cold tea cup, he invited her in.

He was amused by how she moved to accept the invitation; slowly, so he didn't think she'd want it, but quickly enough that he wouldn't rescind it. "I didn't think you'd ever made a mistake. You're the point that everyone turns around here."

A startled laugh combined with a sip from his cup, and he choked. When his lungs were clear, he shook his head. "Is that how you see me?"

"Angel's hardly the most stable person, Gunn is only half here, and Cordelia is..." Kate waved a hand, looking for a word that wouldn't drive Wesley into automatic protective mode. "Young."

"I'm not disputing you, although I hardly agree."

"Doesn't that count as disputing?" Kate asked, grinning.

He made a face at her, one that made her laugh. "You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I know. But you... people trust you, look to you."

"And thus, we return to the subject of my deep thoughts." Wesley toasted Kate with his cup, and drained the dregs.

"Your mistakes? They hardly can be any worse than mine." Kate folded her arms on the edge of his desk and leaned forward.

"Point the first: it hardly matters how much worse others' mistakes are. Your own are far more devastating. Point the second: you don't know how badly I bungled things before Angel gave me a chance here."

"How badly could you have screwed up?" Kate asked.

"Remember Faith?" Wesley asked softly.

"What, the psycho looney chick? I can't believe that you could be responsible --"

"I'm not responsible for what she is, or what she was until she decided to change herself. But I do hold myself responsible for doing everything wrong."

"Everyone makes mistakes, Wes," Kate said.

"Yes, well, most people don't make mistakes that lead to a young girl fated to fight the good fight joining the forces of darkness." Wesley propped his elbows on his desk and put his head in his hands. "For God's sake don't listen to me tonight, Kate. Hearing about that young girl has made me maudlin."

"What, the whole kidnapped from her family at age six thing? I can't see how that would bother you."

Without raising his head, Wesley said, "You perfected that sarcastic voice as a cop, didn't you?"

"It works." Dropping the sarcasm, Kate said, "If you ever did anything like that, I'm surprised you don't count it as one of your mistakes."

"I never participated in the recovery of a Slayer. I was too... useful. Too valuable where I was. But I never questioned it," he added, raising his head. "It made sense. A normal family, a normal life could never prepare a girl for the reality of what it would be like to hunt, fight and kill vampires. It was for her own sake, as well as the sake of the entire world, to take her young and train her well. We missed so many," he said absently. "There's a spell done, to try to determine where the girls that will someday be Slayers are. I participated in it once, after we'd discovered that Buffy had grown up in Los Angeles and been called before we had ever even heard of her. We'd completely missed many of the possibilities in North America. In short order we found Faith... and Amanda.

"I never considered how it would be," Wesley said. He stared past Kate's head, into a darkness she didn't want to understand. "I never translated theory into reality. I never imagined the terrified parents, the screaming child, the pain. And yet, I still can't believe that it isn't the best way. How could a girl understand and accept what her destiny would be if she wasn't raised to it?" With a disgusted shake of his head, Wesley snapped back to reality. "I suppose I haven't changed as much as I thought I had."

"No, I see what you mean. Without advocating the wholesale kidnapping of young girls, mind you. But I understand the damned-one-way-damned-the-other feeling."

"Well, in this case it seems that the Watchers were right, for a reason we never expected. From what Pike has said, they've been chased ever since Amanda ran away from the Watchers who had collected her, likely by the same group who murdered her family trying to get her. I need to do some research, discover who could possibly find use for a creating a vampire out of a child destined to be a Slayer."

"Do you need any help?" Kate asked.

Wesley offered her a tired smile. "Thank you, but likely no."

"Then I'll go out and referee the argument about where our new clients are going to spend the night."

"Good idea." Just as Kate reached the door, Wesley looked up. "Kate?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad that you're here. We need you."

Her smile was very slow, but more real than the cynical grins he generally saw on her face. "Thanks."


	6. Due Diligence

The old abandoned building was still standing. Pike stared at it across the train tracks that had once served to keep it a fully stocked warehouse. Now it was a shell, partially destroyed by fire in the past five years, and probably home to any number of people -- or things -- who didn't have a home elsewhere.

There wasn't any purpose in moving closer. Pike buried his hands in the long coat he wore, regardless of the stifling summer night, and stared. He knew what was and wasn't there. Merrick had used the building as a training area for Buffy, long, long ago. He'd lived there, too, keeping under any and all radars. All of his books and papers had remained there after he had been murdered by Lothos, until Pike had taken them with him.

He didn't need to close his eyes to remember the months between Merrick's death and Buffy's leaving LA. The old warehouse had remained training quarters, and Pike had moved in. Studying wasn't his strong point, and he couldn't read most of the languages that Merrick's books were in, but he could certainly read Merrick's old diaries.

Watchers. Vampires. Slayers. History stretching back farther than anything Pike had ever thought of. And the teenage girl who had steadily become more and more weary the longer she had gone on, watching her life disintegrate around her, with only a jerk slacker for support.

"They're living in the rafters of the gym," Buffy had said to her knees. She was sprawled on the floor of the practice room, forehead resting on her legs. "Hemery has gone through like nine night janitors." She raised her head and looked at Pike, barely two years older than she was, seventeen to her fifteen. "I don't know what to do. My parents will kill me if I sneak out at night again, and it's going to take a couple nights of patrolling to clean out that nest. And there aren't any windows in the gym. They might start attacking during the day."

Pike crossed the room to kneel beside her, hand on her shoulder. When they'd met, they'd had a cautious flirtation, a sense of connection. Now, that connection bound them tight in a shared goal. But Pike was always conscious of the fact that he didn't know enough to help Buffy.

"I don't know what to do," Buffy said again, helplessly. Sunset light speared through the broken windows, and gleamed on her face. In a few minutes, it would be night, and Buffy would have to go patrol until she had to go home and face her parents yet again. The longer this went on, the more she shut down and the less she talked about it, but Pike knew that she was worried that her parents were splitting up, and that it was her fault.

He couldn't do anything for Buffy's splintering world, or the problems she had at home, or her failing grades and fading hopes. But he could help her fight vampires.

"Blow up the gym."

Buffy turned to face him, open-mouthed, and, incredibly, began to giggle. "You have *got* to be kidding me."

"No." He started to get enthusiastic. "Think about it. It'll get rid of them all really fast. And if you do it in the daytime, they won't be able to run away."

Buffy was still looking completely freaked, but there was a faint gleam of appreciation for his scheme in her eyes. Or maybe it was just the desire to do something big. A sly smile crossed her mouth as she blinked at him, making her look almost like the spoiled airhead Valley girl she'd been when he'd met her. "Okay. How do we do it?"

Slowly, Pike turned away from the abandoned building. They'd blown up the gym, and within weeks Buffy was gone, whisked away to a boring little middle-of-nowhere town called Sunnydale. Except for apparently it hadn't been all that boring, and now she was dead. One Slayer dies, and the next one is called.

Someday, that Slayer would be Amanda.

He made his way back to Cordelia's apartment, parking his van on a quiet side street. They'd ended up at Cordelia's due to a shouting match at Hyperion. There was plenty of room at the hotel, but Cordelia pointed out that it wasn't a residence really, and even if it was, it was a vampire's residence, so vampires could waltz in whenever they wanted. They'd argued about where Pike and Amanda would stay until Amanda fell asleep on Pike's arm, and Cordelia had thrown her hands into the air. "Fine. My place. Why not? Everyone else stays there."

It was weird being back in Los Angeles. He kept flipping back and forth between everything being familiar and everything being strange, between knowing exactly how to get to downtown and getting lost on his way out. He didn't like being unsettled. He didn't like being unsure. And he really didn't like asking for help.

He knocked on the door, and it swung open without anyone being on the other side. The ghost again. Cordelia had blithely informed them that her apartment was haunted as she had sailed into her bedroom.

"Amanda and you can share the living room, the kitchen's through there, and oh, yeah, don't worry about it, but my apartment's haunted."

Amanda had just hauled her duffel bag inside. She dropped it and began giggling. Pike had smothered a smile at hearing Amanda's giggles, and called out, "Now you warn us? You couldn't have mentioned this back at the Hyperion?"

"Dennis is a nice ghost. Don't worry about him."

True to Cordelia's words, Amanda's duffel had begun to float up and drifted across the room to tuck itself neatly into a corner. "Cool," Amanda breathed.

"Dennis, the friendly ghost," Pike muttered as his bag began to move. It fell to the ground with a decidedly annoyed thump, and he grimaced. "Got it. Don't like the Casper jokes. Sorry." After a pointed moment, Pike's bag was lifted, moved to the same corner as Amanda's, and put down.

Now Amanda was curled up on the couch watching some action movie with Cordelia. Pike shut the door behind him, and came into the living room. "Nice viewing selection."

"Amanda's choice." Cordelia wrinkled her nose. "She wanted punchy-kicky." Amanda ignored both of them and avidly watched the screen.

"And she doesn't shut up about how they do it wrong," Pike agreed. He leaned forward to clap his hands over Amanda's eyes, and she began to giggle and struggle. She fought him off and kicked him in the shin before settling down to focus again on the screen.

Restless, Pike roamed the apartment. He wandered into the kitchen, where dishes in the sink announced that Amanda and Cordelia had eaten dinner without him. He poked his head into a cabinet and had it shut with a resounding thump. "Hey, I'm sorry about the Casper crack," Pike objected.

"It's not that. Dennis is just really protective of me." Cordelia leaned against the doorjamb and smirked at her houseguest. "Hungry?"

"Nah. Just..." Pike shrugged.

"Bored? Frustrated?"

Pike sighed and leaned back against the counter. "Yeah, I suppose so. I mean, I'm grateful for the invite and all --"

Cordelia brushed aside his pathetic attempt to act civilized with the back of her hand. "But you'd rather be out kicking demon ass."

"Vampire, specifically, but yeah."

"God." Cordelia rolled her eyes and sat down at the kitchen table. "You," she said, pointing at Pike, "are exactly like every guy I've met in the past four years."

"Huh?"

Cordelia waved her hands. "What is wrong with you people? All of you want to fight the good fight, charge in where angels fear to tread -- and hell, I even know an Angel who charges in where angels fear to tread --"

"Bad pun."

"Whatever. All of you just love being macho and risking your necks and what is *wrong* with you?" Cordelia demanded.

"What's wrong with you?" Pike returned.

"Oh, no, no, no. I so did not ask for this gig. I got the vision plan after some other idiot guy went all gung-ho." There was a thread of real pain beneath the sarcastic tone of her voice, and Pike stopped and looked at her. He'd taken her for a smart-mouthed brat who loved being in charge. And he had been right, but there was more than that.

Pike smirked at her. "And you, of course, weren't doing anything, mister, when all of a sudden you landed up to your neck in weird-ass vampire stuff."

"I was *born* in a town of weird-ass vampire stuff. Besides, I was asking you." Cordelia stuck stubbornly to the point.

Pike didn't say anything for long moments, as the sounds of Hong Kong cinema filtered in from the living room. "My best friend was killed," he said finally. "And then the guy who was helping Buffy was killed. I was all she had. And then she left town, and I... couldn't go back to being a slacker. And then I found Amanda, and there wasn't any going back if I wanted to."

"Yeah," Cordelia said quietly. "Yeah, me too. I know the feeling. There's like this moment, when you know too much, and you realize you've just crossed some line no one warned you about." Cordelia sat still for a few moments, and then shook her head hard. "I really hated that moment."

Her pissed-off tone startled a laugh out of him. "Yeah, I know."

Shaking her head, Cordelia got up and went back out into the living room. Pike followed her in time to see her turn off the TV and grin at a sleeping Amanda sprawled on the couch. "Can you pick her up?" she asked in a whisper.

Nodding, Pike crossed the room and boosted Amanda into his arms. She was a tall ten-year-old, but she was still small enough that he could carry her easily.

"Put her in my room," Cordelia said quietly. "I've got a double bed."

Amanda murmured sleepily as Pike tugged her shoes off. Luckily, Cordelia had convinced Amanda to change into sweats before they'd settled down for a night of Jackie Chan. With a peaceful sigh, Amanda turned her head into the pillow and dropped like a rock.

"You really love her," Cordelia said from the doorway of her room.

Pike stared down at the sleeping girl. She'd been the center of his existence for four years, a kid sister, a girl who had looked to him for everything and whole-heartedly believed that he could provide it, his reason for getting up every morning. "Yeah," he said finally. "I do."

He couldn't turn to meet her eyes in the darkened room. He just stood there staring down at Amanda. He loved her more than anything in the world -- and someday he'd send her out to fight monsters.

And die, like Buffy had.

"Come on," Cordelia said finally. "Go to bed. You get the couch. I need my beauty sleep."


	7. Chaos Theory

"And still," Cordelia said, regarding the books scattered across the counter, "this is better than getting demon goop all over you." She sighed and leaned over something called _The Annals of Inshallah_ for the phone. "Hey, five orders of Pad Thai okay with everyone, or does someone want something different?"

There was no response from the research party behind her, and Cordelia turned in surprise. She would have thought by now Pike and Amanda's eyes would be popping out their heads with boredom. God knew she was bored, and she'd had a lot more practice. Then again, generally they were looking for something more concrete then why vampires would want to vamp a not-yet-called Slayer.

"And the answer is, they're not there," Cordelia muttered to herself. Fred and Wesley were bent over another table, covered three-deep in musty tomes, but Pike and Amanda were nowhere to be seen. Cordelia picked up the phone, hit speed dial, and gave their order to the guy at the closest Thai place. He knew her voice so well she didn't even have to give her name or address, and the food was always free after Wesley had exorcised a demon that was tormenting his daughter. Then she went in search of Pike and Amanda.

It was almost sunset, and they'd been hitting the books since about ten that morning. Angel had joined them later on, but had left with Gunn and Kate when someone called and asked for help. Usually, Cordelia appreciated jobs that did not involve her having blinding pains splitting her skull, but Angel was good at the research, and Kate was good at putting things together.

And she couldn't get the vision of Amanda as a vampire out of her mind.

She found Pike and Amanda out in the little ruined garden courtyard, sparring. Cordelia had been in enough fights to recognize that Amanda's strength wasn't anywhere near the level of Buffy's or Faith's, but she didn't know kids well enough to know if she was stronger than your average ten-year-old. But she looked good at it, aiming high-kicks at Pike's upraised hands, pummeling him across the ground. She was grinning fiercely, enjoying the motion, the action.

They couldn't make this kid a demon. Not just because she would be a Slayer someday, but because she teased her surrogate big brother and loved Jackie Chan movies and she was ***ten***, damnit, and Buffy had been fifteen when she was Called and spent something like six years fighting bad guys and died in the end and -- Cordelia took a deep breath to slow her runaway thoughts, and called out into the courtyard, "Food'll be here soon. Anyone hungry?"

Amanda twisted out of an attack with athletic grace, avid at the thought of food. "What'd you get?"

"Pad Thai," Cordelia answered as, behind Amanda's back, Pike shook out his hands as though they were stinging and grinned at her over Amanda's head. It was a very attractive grin. It had a basic guy-level niceness dashed with a hint of wickedness. Cordelia's insides did a slow flip-flop, and then she firmly suppressed their acrobatics. He was cute. He was nice. He had no reasonable source of income, and fought demons for a living. Unliving. Whatever.

"Ick," Amanda said, totally oblivious to the exchange.

Pike picked up a towel from a bench and draped it around his neck. "She hates Pad Thai. I've tried to educate her, but she's got no taste."

"Peanuts. Ick," Amanda repeated again, forcefully.

Cordelia laughed and shook her head. "I think we've got some leftover pizza in the refrigerator, if you want that." She stepped aside to let Amanda zoom past her. "I guess she's hungry."

"She's always hungry," Pike said ruefully. "And let me tell you, a ten-year-old girl who hates peanuts is hard to feed on a budget."

"How do you feed her? I mean, where do you get --" Belatedly, Cordelia remembered that she was going to attempt tact sometime this decade, just to see if she could.

Pike didn't appear to be put out. He just laughed. "Money?" He shrugged. "I've never had any, so not-having it isn't a problem. I'm a mechanic, so when I drift into town I see if I can get a job for a couple weeks. Ditchdigging pays pretty good too. I don't need much." Shrugging, he went inside the hotel as the delivery boy -- brother to the girl Wesley had saved -- brought in the Thai food.

Cordelia grabbed one of the white styrofoam boxes before anyone else made off with it, pulled a pair of chopsticks out of the bag, and wandered over to Wesley. "Anything?"

"Nothing at all since the last time you asked me, fifteen minutes ago," Wesley said testily. He was mad at himself for not finding anything, Cordelia decided, and wandered away, devouring noodles.

Fred had given up the books for a few moments and wandered over to the counter. She was looking at an opened box of Pad Thai with a puzzled expression and her hands behind her back. "Are you sure this is food? It looks like --"

"Don't," Cordelia cut her off. "Don't even go there. I don't want to know what it looks like. You are not going to ruin Pad Thai for me."

Big-eyed, Fred nodded and backed away from the box. When she headed off to the kitchen, Cordelia picked it up and shoved it under Wesley's nose. "Eat. Got it?"

Absently Wesley looked up, his eyes almost crossing as they tried to refocus behind his glasses from the print on the book in front of him to Cordelia's face. He blinked his vision clear and smiled wanly. "Got it," he said obediently, shutting the book and putting it carefully aside, clearing a place for the food.

Cordelia sat in the chair Fred had abandoned, and squeezed her own box on a corner of the desk. "Okay, let's look at this a different way. We've been trying to find a prophesy or a spell or something to explain why vampires would want Amanda. What if there isn't one? What if someone just thought it up on their own? I mean, think about it. Attacking a not-quite Slayer, and making her a vamp. Less risk to them, but still evil and twisted. Wouldn't Angel have done something like that? You know, back when he was evil and world-endy?"

Wesley screwed up his mouth in thought. "If that is the case, we'd have no way to track them. They wouldn't have a predictable pattern."

"Other than chasing Amanda." Cordelia fixed Wesley with a glare that he returned, puzzled, until he remembered and scooped up some noodles. Satisfied, she returned to the matter at hand. "Oh, and like so many of the things we fight are predictable anyway."

Wesley chewed thoughtfully. When he'd swallowed he said, "You have an excellent point. We may have been going about this all wrong."

"Don't say it like it's a shock," Cordelia said, grinning. "Anyway, that lands us back where we started, which is basically clueless."

"Not entirely. The question is how they found out who Amanda is, or, rather, who she will be."

"Same way Pike did?" Cordelia guessed. "Something happened to those Watchers, right?"

"Yes." Wesley's mouth tightened. "Many of them were killed, in much the same manner Amanda's family was. A few got away."

"So, the vampires have been chasing him ever since he's been with Amanda."

"Which would seem to indicate that the vampires themselves had no way to track a possible Slayer, so they could not afford to lose one that had been unearthed for them." Wesley was getting steadily more excited with the new theory. "All right, then, we --"

Both of them were on their feet and moving before consciously registering that they had heard a scream. Executing a tight pirouette, Cordelia turned back to grab a crossbow, while Wesley had reflexively grabbed a sword before getting up from the desk. They broke into the kitchen to find it full of vampires. Pike was desperately trying to beat one into submission, and Fred had grabbed an old, corroded saucepan and hit one of them over the head with it.

"Where's the girl?" one of the vampires growled. "He said to get the girl!"

Amanda was nowhere in sight, Cordelia registered as she fired a shot at the vamp Pike was fighting. She missed the heart, but the bolt hit high in its shoulder. Pike snatched it and buried it in the vampire's heart, stepping back as it exploded into dust. Screaming to get his attention, Cordelia tossed the crossbow to him, figuring he probably had a better chance with the second loaded bolt, and sprinted back to the weapons cabinet to see if there was anything else she could use.

She grabbed an axe and turned to face a vampire that had followed her out of the kitchen. Running on pure adrenaline, she swung the axe in an arc that turned her completely around and cut the vampire in half. She was still choking on the dust when she ran back to the kitchen.

Which was empty. Except for a few piles of ash on the ground, it was totally empty. Cordelia clutched her axe, gasping for breath, and said, "Where the hell is everyone?"

Amanda crawled out from a cupboard. Her eyes were huge and she hugged herself to stop shaking. "I don't know. Pike stuffed me in here. I heard one of the vamps say something about getting the seer if they couldn't get the girl, and then someone screamed. I thought it was you. Then everyone ran out."

Cordelia was shaking herself, and not just from fighting a vamp. Leaving a room full of fighting vampires and coming back to nothing shook her so much that she was barely focusing on what Amanda was saying.

Which was, of course, why at that exact moment she pitched forward, clutching her head in agony.

When she came to, Wesley and Pike had returned, and she had been moved out into the lobby. "Fred," she gasped out. "They've got her."

"We know," Wesley said grimly. "They thought she was you."

Three hours later, after Angel, Gunn and Kate had come back, the message arrived. "The girl for the seer, or the seer dies."

"Not exactly wasting words, are they?" Cordelia asked bitterly, dropping the note.

"A hellish choice," Wesley said quietly. "They must know Angel can't afford to lose his connection to the Powers That Be. Somehow, they got information on who Angel's seer was, and what she looked like."

"But they didn't know I cut my hair six months ago." Abruptly, Cordelia got up and moved away from the group. She went to stare out a window.

"You okay?" Pike was behind her.

"Oh, yeah, great. Fred just got kidnapped in my place, and wow, you know, she's so stable to begin with. And now she's in danger and my vision wasn't all that helpful and no, I'm *not* okay." Fiercely, Cordelia backhanded the tears on her face. "Well, we're just going to get her back, that's all."

"Hey, you want to blame someone, blame me. I brought you all into this."

Cordelia sighed. "It doesn't work that way. We're the do-gooders. Which kind of means we end up having to do good. Okay," she said, raising her voice to be heard by the rest of the people in the room and walking back to their little planning huddle. "One more time. Empty building. Concrete floor. Old crates. Some sort of machinery rusting in the corner. Sounds of traffic."

Screw the vampires. They'd save Fred, they'd protect Amanda, and they'd kick some ass.

"Streetlights through a window. Gas station across the street. Yuri's Tip-Top or something...."


	8. Waiting Game

There were times that her new life wasn't that different from her old. Kate stood in front of a whiteboard and she didn't have to pretend that was back at the station house. This was the **reason** she had become a cop, this sense of being in pursuit of justice. She thought she'd inherited that sense from her father --

Kate snarled at herself and outlined on the whiteboard where everyone was to go. She and Gunn had done a drive-by of the location Cordelia had seen in her vision, and had started making plans for breaking in and rescuing Fred. Gunn had been all for breaking in then-and-now, but Kate had managed to hold him back with the argument that if they went in alone, without backup, without a plan, then the vampires that had kidnapped Fred could grab her and escape through the sewers -- or kill her and escape through the sewers.

Pike wandered over to look over her shoulder. "How's it going?"

Kate wrinkled her nose at the chemical smell of the dry erase marker she held, and capped it. "Fine," she said, her tone absent and short. Pike took the hint and left her alone. It wasn't that she didn't like him, Kate thought as she picked up her cup of coffee and gagged on the cold sludge that was left. It's just that she had put away enough slackers of his type that her hackles automatically rose. They weren't evil -- usually -- just stupid. The sort that would blow up an apartment building because they were using a propane tank to cook their crack. Unthinking. Careless.

To be fair, Pike wasn't stupid, unthinking, or careless. But he was so relentlessly to type that she couldn't think of him any other way. Kate shrugged and went to the coffee pot, pouring the half inch that was left in the bottom into her cup. She wasn't going to beat herself up for misjudging Pike, particularly when she had already acknowledged that she had misjudged Pike. She had better things to expend her energy on. "Angel Investigations runs on coffee and idealism," she said out loud.

"Usually coffee more than idealism," Cordelia agreed. Cordelia had done the digging online that had lead to their battle plan: sewers, sewers and more sewers. Attack during the day, so no escape out into the sunlight was possible, and block their retreat into the LA DWP's access tunnels. Kate took the latest printout from her with a brisk nod. She and Cordelia both functioned best in an emergency. They were an excellent team when they weren't bored enough to be sniping at each other constantly.

Angel and Gunn were -- predictably -- sharpening weapons. Wesley sat in the office, visible through the open door, books stacked all around him as he searched for some clue as to why these vampires might be focusing on Amanda. Nobody bothered to tell him that it wasn't necessary to know **why**, really, just like no one told Angel that he was about to wear through the blade of the axe with the whetstone. People dealt with stress in their own ways. In this case, Kate dealt by ordering people around.

"Okay, plan: Gunn and Cordelia will wait outside in Angel's car, just in case they have some sort of sun-proof escape vehicle. Me, Angel, and Wesley will wait outside the lower entrance." Pike raised his eyebrows and his hand. "What?"

"Okay, and where am I in all of this?"

Kate shrugged. "I figured you'd be with Amanda, back here. You can't leave her alone."

"Yes he can," Amanda protested. "I don't need him to sit on me."

"She can't protect herself. She can't fight a bunch of vampires," Kate argued.

"I don't have to fight them," Amanda said scornfully. "I can hide. I'm pretty good at that."

Cordelia glanced from Kate to Amanda and rose to step between them. "Which is a wonderful skill that is smarter than, say, **most** of the Y-chromosome-bearing people in this room, but I've got a better idea."

Angel looked up from his axe. "What?"

Cordelia grinned, delighted with her own insight and general brilliance. "Caritas."

"What's that?" Pike asked suspiciously.

"It's a bar. A demon bar."

"Oh, wow, what a great idea," Pike interrupted. "Sorry, but I'm kind of trying to **save** Amanda, not throw her to the wolves. Pass."

"God, will you listen for one second? It's enchanted so that no violence can happen there. She'll be perfectly safe."

"Do you think Lorne will take her?" Angel asked.

"Are you kidding?" Cordelia reached out to grab her purse, all set to go. "I think our little Mandy is going to knock his neon socks off. Come on, Pike. You can come with, prove to yourself that it's safe."

Pike grabbed Cordelia's arm. "Hello? Listen to me. Not. Taking. Amanda. There. Not leaving her with a bunch of demons. No. N. O."

"Fine. You ask for help, and then you ignore us. Whatever."

"I think it's a good idea," Angel said. His quiet words just seemed to fan the flames and everyone began talking at once. Pike and Cordelia were yelling in each other's faces, Amanda was insisting she could take care of herself (and that nobody ever, ever, ever called her Mandy), Wesley came out of his office to scold them for interrupting his research, and Angel kept trying to patch everyone's argument with his faintly hangdog expression of brooding guilt, since the screaming hadn't started until he said something. Kate caught Gunn's eye and they grinned at each other, vastly amused.

After maybe two minutes, Kate got bored. "Shut. **Up**," she ordered in a good detective-to-rookie-street-cops bellow. The noise abated slightly. With the faint remnant of his grin still lingering as a smirk, Gunn tossed her the axe he had been sharpening, and she used it as a striker on a large shield propped up against the wall. The resulting gong noise was very impressive.

"Okay. Plan. Cordelia will take Amanda and Pike to Caritas." Great, now she sounded like a drill sergeant. Or a kindergarten teacher. She'd never seen the place either. One more thing that Angel Investigations hadn't seen fit to share with its newest member. "Then, and only then, will Pike and Amanda decide if that is an acceptable solution. Got it?"

"Sounds good to me," Pike said. He seemed to be trying to pretend that he had never been yelling at Cordelia, and was seated on the red velvet bench in the lobby, ankles outstretched and crossed casually, arms stretched across the back.

Amanda was still bouncing on the toes of her sneakers, exhilarated by the argument. "You can't make me stay there if I don't want to."

"Fair enough," Kate said.

"Cool." Amanda grinned. "I want to see a bar. And this'll be a **demon** bar."

Pike groaned and covered his eyes. "God, I really didn't mean it when I threw those beer bottles at the cheerleaders' heads, don't make me pay now..."

Kate pressed the heels of her hands to her temples after Pike, Cordelia and Amanda had left. The three of them didn't seem to know how to communicate in anything quieter than a shout -- no, Cordelia knew **how**, it was just in the company of their latest clients, she didn't bother. Satisfied that it was likely to stay reasonably quiet for awhile, Kate went back to her whiteboard and started working Pike into the equation.

Through the open door to the office, she could see Wesley sitting still, not researching, just staring straight ahead. After a moment, she put down the marker and crossed the lobby to the office. "Hey. Found something?"

"Yes. I... no. Rather, I..." Sighing, Wesley shook his head. "It's a bit disconcerting."

"More than a bit, I'd guess," Kate said, coming fully into the office and sinking down into a chair in front of the desk Wesley had piled high with books.

"Yes. Yes it is."

Kate waited silently for Wesley to continue. "Okay, I like the echoes of doom that ring through the office when you say that. Nice voice projection too, all dark and meaningful. But what do you mean?"

He didn't even crack a smile at her smart-ass comment. "Cordelia postulated that the vampires chasing after Amanda might be after an easy thrill. Killing a Slayer is the Holy Grail of some. Few succeed, however, and most who try end up dead."

"So killing a girl who is going to be a Slayer someday is... what? All the thrill and none of the danger?"

"Perhaps." Wesley wouldn't meet her eyes, not because his abstraction or discomfort were with her, particularly, but when he was uncertain or unhappy, he tended to shift his focus often, to a wall, a book, a fascinating light fixture. In guys she'd hauled in for questioning, it usually signaled guilt. In Wesley, it tended to mean he was feeling lost.

"You don't sound too sure of that."

Wesley sighed. "Whether they are a group of ignorant demons or actually have a plan, I don't know. And it doesn't matter. If they kill Amanda, it doesn't... change things. Another will take her place. But if they make her a vampire, as according to Cordelia's vision --"

"Wouldn't she be dead in that case, anyway?"

"It's... not quite that simple." Now Wesley met her eyes, forcing himself to deal with what he'd discovered as he told her. "It is believed -- strongly believed -- that if a young girl destined to be a Slayer were made a vampire before she was Called, she would still eventually become Slayer."

"No. Wait. Slayers are the good guys, right? So how...?"

"Slayers fight for good by killing. There is a darker aspect to their natures. And that is, what I think, why they would still receive their Calling."

"Okay. Let me get this straight. If they make Amanda a vampire, then in five or six years, she could become the Slayer. And then...?"

"And then she would be a vampire with all the strength and skill that has been passed down through the Slayer line for millennia," Wesley said bleakly. "In short, a nearly unkillable creature, and embodying within herself the one person who might be able to kill her."

Kate neither knew or cared about Slayers as much as Wesley, or Angel, or Cordelia did. The one she had known was a screwed up girl who was amazingly successful at destroying everything around her. But she could almost taste Wesley's desperation. The idea of, in one stroke, taking away someone who fought for good and replacing it with an equally strong creature fighting for evil...

"Well, shit," she said out loud without thinking.

Startled, Wesley looked at her. When he began to laugh, she scowled at him. Still laughing, he shook his head. "No, I'm not laughing at you. But... I must say, no one puts things quite the way you do."

Kate narrowed her eyes at him. "Is that a compliment?"

Intelligently, Wesley swallowed his laughter and gave the only answer he dared. "Ah, yes, yes it is."

"Good. Then if you don't mind, I think it's about time to start getting everyone into place for our little rescue operation, so we'll be ready to go when Cordelia and Pike return."


	9. Off Key

Pike had seen a lot in the past five years. Vampires, demons, things that went spook in the night... they'd become commonplace. He had Merrick's books, and even if he couldn't read ancient Babelize, he could get the gist of the stuff in English. He'd rarely encountered anything but vampires, anyway.

He'd certainly never encountered anything like the Host.

It wasn't the green skin and the red eyes and the horns... okay, it was. But it was also the absolute assurance and in-your-face cheerfulness. Not to mention the salmon sports coat paired with slate blue pants. For Pike, whose idea of grand fashion was a clean flannel shirt, it almost made his eyes cross.

The rest of the club was startling in its own way. He'd never seen so many monsters in his life. Vampire in full fright-face mode were all over the place... including the stage, singing Alanis Morissette. He kept twitching for the axe that Cordelia had insisted he leave in the car. Being unarmed in a place like this was driving him crazy. And there was no way in hell he was leaving Amanda here.

With that in mind, he gritted his teeth as Cordelia introduced him to Lorne. The demon greeted him briefly, then knelt down to that he was a couple inches shorter than Amanda. She peered at his face, fascinated. "What kind of demon are you?"

"A rock-and-roll and lady-sings-the-blues demon," Lorne said promptly.

Amanda grinned, but it was gone quickly. "But... you're not a bad guy, right?"

"Nope," Lorne said, getting to his feet. "I'm on the side of the angels, as it were."

"But *they're* not," Pike muttered, ignoring Cordelia when she poked him.

Lorne faced him directly. "No, he said, calm in the face of Pike's obvious hostility. "They're not. I'm a lover, not a fighter. I don't pass judgment on them. I just give people a signpost to chart their course by. They sing, I read, they live their lives."

"And that's good enough for you, Demon Boy?"

"Yes. No, Princess," he held up a hand when Cordelia tried to intervene again, "the man has a point. I don't go out on the front lines and fight the good fight, not like you and Angel and Gunn and Wesley. Not like Kurt Cobain here, either."

"You mean, except for the times when you do," Cordelia contended hotly. "Lorne helps us."

"Even against my nature, sanity, and will," the Host murmured.

Cordelia ignored him. "He fights and he suffers for it and you're not the only one who saves the day so get over yourself already." Shrugging off Lorne's hand on her shoulder, she flounced off to find a table and sit down.

Pike stared after her for a couple of minutes. "Okay, I missed something there."

"No, I think you hit something there. A big bright shiny button, right there on the middle of her forehead. The one labeled 'issues' in shocking scarlet type. I'd suggest you try not to hit that button again."

"Shut up," Pike said, but without the edge of hostility he expected to feel. In forty-eight hours, he'd asked for help from a vampire and was being pressured to leave Amanda in a demon bar. He really hated the feeling of the ground shifting beneath his feet.

"My, my," Lorne said. "I think your little girl is going to serenade us all."

Pike blinked and looked around. He knew better than to get distracted when Amanda was nearby, because she had a tendency to investigate her immediate surroundings. Not wander off; she knew he'd get pissed at her if she disappeared. But she got bored easily, and liked to examine things, play with them...

"Giiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirls just waaaaana have fuuu-uuuun!"

Lorne and Pike winced. "Well, we know that among her future career choices, you'll never have to worry about her becoming another Brittney Spears."

"That's not what worries me," Pike muttered as Amanda hammed it up on stage, with the accompaniment of three female -- at least, he assumed that they were female -- tenticled demons. She was having a blast, he realized. For a girl who'd spent most of her life on the run with only him for company, she was reveling in being surrounded by people. "It's safe?" he asked.

Lorne lifted a hand as though to clap it to his shoulder then thought better of it. "Yes," he said quietly. "It's perfectly safe. No demon can do violence in Caritas."

"Not even you?" The question was involuntary.

"No. Not even me. Now, then, are you going to leave your pint-sized wonder with me, or not?

"Leave her? I don't think I could pry her out of here." Pike heard the edge of jealousy in his voice and winced. He didn't mind being obvious, but he really hated being pathetic.

Lorne grinned. "She loves you more than the world. Definitely more than chocolate. Not even a cool demon karaoke bar is going to compete with that. Now, then, I suggest that you leave your little girl to charm everyone around her, and go mend fences with Cordelia over there. Trust me. You do not want that girl on your bad side."

Abandoned in the middle of the bar, Pike took a deep breath. "Okay, here goes." He walked over to the table where Cordelia was sitting and grabbed a chair, straddling it backwards. If she was really pissed at him, he was in an excellent position to fend her off like a lion tamer. "Look, whatever I said to piss you off, I'm sorry."

"Oh, please. That's such a guy apology. 'I don't know what's going on in your confusing girl brain, but if offering a half-assed apology will fix it, I'll do it.'"

"Hey. I'm a guy. And I don't know what's going on in your confusing girl brain. But I obviously said or did something to make you mad, so I'm sorry."

"It's nothing." She was tracing patterns in the water rings on the table, and looked up to meet Pike's steady glance. "Okay, fine, it's something, but I'm not getting into it." She held for about three seconds under that look -- Pike hadn't raised a pre-teenage girl for four years for nothing -- and finally said, "I lost someone. And he's been on my mind a lot lately, since Buffy died, and he was one of those demons that you just blew off, and it pissed me off. End of story."

Pike folded his arms on the back of the chair, and rested his chin on them. "Then I'm really sorry. That sucks."

"Yeah," Cordelia said, her voice hard. "It really sucks. But we've all lost people, right? I mean, Amanda lost her family, and Gunn his sister and Angel lost the big-old love-of-his-unlife, and it shouldn't hurt this much after so long."

"How long?"

Cordelia picked up her glass and swallowed a sip of Coke. It took just long enough to get her voice under control. "Almost two years."

Pike grinned wryly. "That's nothing. I still miss Benny, and he's been toast for five years."

Cordelia returned the smile. "Benny?"

"Yeah. Slacker dude extraordinaire, my best bud. What sucked was having it face him down as a vampire. He was smarter as a vampire, though. He survived Lothas. Buffy finally took him down when she blew up the gym at her school."

"I'm sorry," Cordelia said quietly.

Pike shrugged. "It's okay. I guess it's like fate. If they hadn't gotten Benny, I wouldn't have wanted to fight vampires so bad. And if I hadn't, Amanda would have been on her own."

"Everything going swimmingly over here?" Lorne stopped by their table and shot a winning grin at Cordelia.

"Yes, we're fine. Um, Lorne? Did you...?"

"Read anything off of Amanda? Sorry, Princess. I've got a useful little talent. You've got the connection to the Powers that Be. Anything you saw trumps anything I saw."

"Oh, well, it was worth a shot." She gulped down the rest of her Coke and stood up. "So you'll babysit?"

Lorne folded his arms and attempted to look very stern. "Yes. Just the once. Because Amanda is a cutie. But I don't want you guys to think that this is anything more than a one-time deal, or that you can dump your vulnerable innocents off with me any time. This is a bar, not a day care facility."

"Got it," Cordelia said breezily, and brushed his cheek with a kiss. "Be back this afternoon. I hope."

"Good luck. Bring Fred back safe, okay?"

"That's the plan. Thanks, Lorne."

With one look back at Amanda, who was behind the bar handing glasses to the bartender, Pike followed Cordelia out, to the strains of a webbed creature singing Kenny Rodgers' "Lady."


	10. Wild Bunch

"Get your elbow out of my teeth, Wes, or so help me God I'll --"

"A simple request would have sufficed," Wesley hissed under his breath.

He, Cordelia, and Angel were stationed in the sewer exit below the warehouse the vampires had imprisoned Fred in. The very small exit. The very narrow, cramped and extraordinarily smelly exit.

None of the three of them would give way to either of the others, to allow any of them to be the first to face who-or-whatever was going to come through that door. Typical. If it wasn't for the death threats, it would be quite touching. As it was, they filled in the available space with barely room to swing a weapon. Cordelia had claimed the crossbow, reasoning that it needed the least amount of room to maneuver. Wesley decided to not voice his worries that she might accidentally shoot Angel with it -- or, God forbid, himself.

Then again, they had to be cautious to not behead Cordelia. It all balanced out to trust.

Gunn, Kate and Pike were due to storm the front of the warehouse as soon as the sun was up, to make sure that no one could escape out into the daylight and to herd the vampires towards the sewer exit. It was an inelegant plan, but hopefully the vampires would be too startled to harm Fred before she could be recovered.

Hopefully.

The sound of shouting above them was their cue to be ready. Wesley choked up on his ax, and shared a glance with Angel and Cordelia. Cordy flashed a brilliant grin at him, acknowledging that there was nothing that needed to be said, and Angel nodded once.

Then their little anteroom exploded with noise and bodies, as about fifteen vampires tried to pile into the narrow passageway at once. The first exploded into dust from Cordelia's crossbow, and Angel ducked through the cloud to behead the next. After that, things became too chaotic for Wesley to follow in anything other than the rhythm of the fight. He inhaled too much dust and bent over, coughing, with a stray thought that the number of vampires they killed in LA could be contributing to the poor air quality. Recovering, he ducked in time to avoid a vampire-powered fist.

In the background, he could hear the sounds of a similar fight, between the other flank of their attack and the vampires who had turned and fought rather than running. He could hear a bellowed battle cry that could only be Pike. Kate and Gunn tended to fight in focused silence. Gunn, however, should be looking for Fred and escaping with her before the rest of the vampires found out she was gone.

In one move, he stabbed a vampire with the wooden point on the head of his ax, ducked under Angel's swipe at another vamp, and pivoted to bring the blade of the ax around to behead another vampire. "Hey!" Kate shouted, jumping back a step, narrowly avoiding his strike.

Startled, Wesley checked his motion, then lowered the ax and looked around. "We're done?" he asked, panting.

"Looks like it." Leaning against a wall, Pike used the tail of his shirt to wipe his forehead. "Man, when you guys plan a battle scene, you're not kidding."

"Gunn and Fred get out okay?" Angel asked.

Kate nodded quickly. "Think so. They should be outside. Let's make our getaway."

Angel turned and made his way through the sewers while the rest of them headed back through the warehouse, alert for any stragglers. But they made their way outside without incident. "Just another late night for Angel Investigations," Wesley said, yawning hugely.

Gunn and Fred were locked in the cab of his truck. Fred was sitting up and talking animatedly, waving her hands around. Wesley sighed in relief, to see her safe and unharmed. When Gunn saw them, he raised his hand in acknowledgement and started his truck. The rest of them piled into the convertible and took off for Caritas to pick up Amanda, full of high spirits.

When they got there, the club was closed for the day, chairs up on tables. Amanda was sitting on the bar, drying glasses as the Host passed them back to her. "..at the beach, do you have to use sunscreen?"

Lorne shot her a smile as he tossed another glass at her. She snagged it out of the air with easy skill. "Honey, I don't go to the beach much in the daylight."

"Oh. Good point. But if you did, do you sunburn? And if so, what color?"

"The mighty warriors have returned!" Pike announced.

"Plus those of us who actually did the work," Cordelia added, grinning.

Amanda put her glass down and jumped down to the floor. "You guys rock," she said, high-fiving Pike. "So, how many were there? Were they organized? What kind of fight did they put up? Did they have weapons? How'd you guys beat them?"

"Bloodthirsty little darling," Lorne said fondly. "She's got a one-track mind."

Amanda scowled at him. "Do not. We talked about movies -- "

"Violent movies."

"-- and music."

Lorne looked balefully at Pike. "You've got to expose her more music than grunge post-1991 and pre-1998. She's missing a cornucopia of musical expression."

Exhilarated, Pike just smiled at him. "That's for not murdering her," he said, reaching out to shake Lorne's hand.

"My pleasure. But," with a quick look at the members of Angel Investigations in the room, "let's never, ever do it again. Capisce?"

"Got it," Cordelia said cheerfully.

"Right. I'll believe it when I see it. Okay, conquering heroes, a drink for the road? Water, not beer, mind you. You all look like you'd fall over if hit by a pink boa."

Amanda laughed hysterically at the resulting groans of, "Please, dear God, yes." With a boost from Pike, she was back sitting up on the bar while the rest of them took seats.

Wesley watched the two of them as he sipped his water. Their body language declared them a unit, a functioning team. Hiding a self-mocking smile in his glass, Wesley acknowledged that they looked like Buffy and Giles facing him down as Buffy declared that she no longer took instruction from the Watcher Council. Giles and Buffy were joined by the same absolute faith in each other.

Had been joined, actually.

Amanda nearly broke herself laughing as Kate described a vampire who had gotten so flustered in the fight that he'd run outside into the daylight, incinerating himself. Pike had his elbows propped on the bar, glass dangling from his hand as he drank from it. What wasn't obvious when was in motion was that he was bone-deep exhausted, and not just because of a sleepless night.

For four years, since he had been a teenager, he'd been the sole guardian of a girl who was being chased by vampires who wanted to destroy her. He raised her, fed her, and trained her to her destiny, exactly what a traditional Watcher did with his or her charge. But without the support of the Watcher council. Without a team of specialized scholars who could translate from Egyptian hieroglyphics into French. Without even the financial support needed to devote his life to the girl who would be a Slayer.

"Come on," Kate drained her glass and put it down. "We're dead on our feet. Time to crash."

Deep in thought, Wesley took the steering wheel as everyone piled into the car. He no longer thought the Watcher Council was the be all and end all of existence. What he and Cordelia and Gunn and Kate managed to accomplish with Angel was just as important. It wasn't just reverting to his childhood training. It wasn't that he wanted to present the Watcher Council with a child they had thought lost to them.

Cordelia leaned over to Wesley from where she sat in the passenger seat. "What are you thinking about so hard?"

Wesley's fingers tightened on the wheel. "Amanda needs a Watcher," he said quietly. The words were drowned before they reached the backseat.

Cordelia frowned. "She's got a Watcher. Pike."

"Who is an excellent teacher and guardian and would obviously give his life for her. But the Watcher Council... contrary to what they've shown in recent years, the reason for their existence is not to control the Slayer but support her." Wesley braked for a red light, and waited until he was driving again to continue. "And after seeing Amanda, I understand more than ever why that is. Pike is wearing himself out trying to raise, train and support her. He shouldn't have to."

"You try telling him that," Cordelia said, and leaned back up into her seat, effectively taking herself out of listening range.

When they pulled up outside of the Hyperion, everyone piled out of the car. "Pike," Wesley called.

Pike waved Amanda on into the hotel and turned back to face Wesley. "Yeah?"

"I wanted to... I wanted to ask, no, suggest something. I --"

Pike crossed his arms and leaned back against the car. "I'm gonna fall asleep here any minute, so how about you spit it out and I promise I won't be pissed off by what you're trying to say."

Wesley sighed. "I wanted to suggest that you allow me to contact the Watcher Council."

Pike lowered his arms and came firmly to his feet. "No way in hell. They're not taking her." His entire body was drawn with tension, a fight- or-flight instinct to protect.

"Wait, listen to me. I don't mean them taking her, I mean them helping you. The both of you." Pike's posture and expression didn't change, but the very fact that he wasn't charging off to drag Amanda into hiding reassured Wesley. More calmly, he continued, "Amanda won't move a step without you. And I'd seriously like to see anyone try to force her away."

"Why should I?" Pike asked.

"It would mean you could stop living on the run, one step ahead of either authorities or demons. It means you would not have to live hand to mouth, and could devote your time to Amanda. It would mean back up when Amanda has questions you can't answer." Wesley sighed again, in frustration. "It would mean bloody well not reinventing the wheel every five minutes."

Pike kept watching him steadily. "What else?" he asked.

Wesley smiled, faintly. "The Watcher Council has been stagnate for quite some time. Buffy and her Watcher, Mr. Giles, began to stir them up. I think you and Amanda would be an excellent addition."

"Would they take me?"

"If they want Amanda, yes. And she's not a six year old child anymore. She knows her own mind."

"So do I," Pike said, pushing away from the car.

"Just... think about it, all right?"

Pike glanced at him, then turned and walked into the hotel without answering.

And that, Wesley decided, was likely the best he was going to do for now. Tilting his head from side to side to work out the kinks, he followed Pike into the hotel.

The first thing he saw, with a sick shock, was Cordelia with a knife to her throat. Just in front of him, Pike had frozen. Gunn and Fred were nowhere in sight, Angel and Kate had obviously been fighting until Cordelia had been threatened, and Amanda had backed up against the check in counter, eyes darting to try to find a way out. Scattered around the room were six or so vampires on their feet, two or three on the floor and temporarily out of commission. The odds weren't bad -- if it wasn't for that knife.

"Either one of you moves and we slit her throat," the vampire holding Cordelia growled.

"No one's moving," Pike said, hands held out to his sides. "Just let her go."

"And why'd we do that?" Another vampire emerged from the shadows behind Cordelia, and grinned across the lobby. "Hi there, old buddy old pal. How's life treating you, Pike?"

Pike made a noise that sounded like a quickly suppressed groan. "Who is that?" Wesley asked as quietly as he could.

Pike didn't seem to hear. "Oh, Jesus. Benny..."


	11. Closing Time

"This has got to be a nightmare," Pike said. He could hear his voice, and the words. They made perfect sense, which didn't seem right. In nightmares, you weren't able to talk, or scream, or move, or do anything.

He felt like some big demon had a hand around his head and was slowly squeezing it. Any second now, his brains were going to pop out of his ears. The only things he could see were the knife at Cordelia's throat, Amanda standing alone and frozen off to the side, and Benny's face.

Benny was pacing in front of Pike with nervous, giddy energy. He'd been like that, when they hadn't been stoned. Stupidly, Pike remembered when they had gone to a drugstore to get lighters. Steal lighters, 'cause they were both broke. They had gotten thrown out on their asses because Benny couldn't keep still, and the security guard kept tailing them.

Nobody moved, except Benny. No one spoke. Waiting for him, Pike realized. He had to pick which way to jump. If he just stayed still, stayed quiet, nothing would happen, right? They'd all stay frozen here. The knife wouldn't slash Cordelia's neck, Amanda wouldn't be grabbed and dragged screaming into life as a demon.

Benny drifted to a stop, his face a foot from Pike's. That close, Pike could see it wasn't his friend. Not the goofy, idiot kid he'd hung out with. "You're not Benny," he said. Fear made his voice flat.

Without moving, Benny grinned. "You're not Pike, either. You, fight the good fight, warrior for truth and justice?" He laughed. His breath in Pike's face was foul. "I don't believe it."

"What do you want, Benny?"

"I dunno, a nice place to hang out, some blondes to eat, eternal life... no, wait, got that already." Benny cocked his head sharply to one side. The move made him look weird, alien. A vampire. "Oh, yeah, and your little girl."

"Leave her alone." He didn't have a weapon. Stupid, stupid, to not have a weapon on him. Stupid to have walked into this ambush.

Behind Benny, Kate and Angel exchanged a silent signal. Benny caught the flick of Pike's eyes over his shoulder, and whirled back as they attacked. In a moment, the vampire who was holding Cordelia was dust on the floor. But Benny had caught her wrist and pulled her into his arms, her wrist twisted sharply behind her back. Cordelia kicked back, connecting with Benny's knee, then cried out in pain when he yanked on her pinned arm.

"Now, where were we?" Benny dipped his head and sniffed along Cordelia's shoulder, up her neck. "Delish," he sighed happily. "Oh, yeah, my evil plan. It's your fault, you know. If you hadn't scooped up Slayer Spice over there, I never would have found her once she had gotten away from the Order of Contraria. They had kind of enslaved me at that point, but once they got their ashes canned by whoever it was who had her in the first place, I was free. Stop wiggling or I'll break your neck," Benny said, wrapping his hand under Cordelia's chin and jerking it up.

Cordelia contented herself with a muttered, "Spice Girls jokes are so nineties." Then she flicked her eyes up and met Pike's clearly.

It was like an electric pulse shot through him from soles to head, waking him up. Benny was having a ball torturing him. So use it. Use it to buy time. "Leave her alone," he said more forcefully, mouthing the words Benny would expect. The words of a thousand action heroes facing their arch nemesises. "It's me you want. Let them go."

"No, actually, it's Amanda I want. She's my ticket to power. The undead Slayer. It's perfect. You, I want dead. Or maybe vamped. Wouldn't that be just perfect irony? Vampire Hunter Pike, a bloodsucking member of the night crew. I'm the vamp in charge here, and you'd be my little follower. Gotta love it."

Pike could practically feel the energy vibrating off of Wesley, a few feet away. Suddenly, Wesley jumped one of the few remaining vampires left standing in the room.

Benny swung to face them, dragging Cordelia with him. "Stand still!" he bellowed. "I'll kill her, I swear to God I --"

His body jerked violently. He had just enough time to turn and stare at Amanda before it disintegrated into ash.

Amanda kept the crossbow up and aimed at where Benny had been. "Bad guys always talk too much," she said.

Pike crossed the lobby and knelt beside her, pushing the bow down to point at the ground. "It's over," he said quietly. "You did good, kid."

Shaking, Amanda dropped the crossbow and wrapped her arms around Pike's neck. "I thought he was going to kill Cordelia. Or you. And I saw the crossbow, but I didn't know how to get to it without them seeing me, until Wesley made him turn his back."

"Go, Wes," Cordelia said, shaken. She went to Amanda. "Hey," she said softly. "Thanks for my life."

Everyone was stunned enough to keep staring around at the piles of ash without moving, until Fred and Gunn came in. "Hey. We stopped for breakfast. Anyone want waffles?"

A week later, Pike, Gunn and Kate returned from fighting a Kalha demon in Malibu. "See, when you say that they take salt water and turn it to electricity, I wasn't expecting actual lightening bolts shooting out of its hands," Gunn said as they came through the lobby doors.

"Successful?" Wesley asked from his office.

"It is now safe to go back into the water," Pike reported. He grinned at Amanda, who was doing her typical high-perch thing, cross-legged on the check-in counter, a sharpening stone and a sword in her lap. He grabbed a soda out of the small refrigerator behind the counter, and leaned back. Cordelia had the laptop open and was frowning at the screen. "What's the matter?"

"Besides demons, monsters, and the fact that people still buy Cher's albums?" She tapped the screen. "Your flight's been rescheduled. It leaves at six, not nine."

"I'd better hurry up then, right? Wait, I don't own anything, so I've got nothing to pack." He settled back more comfortably against the counter and drained his can of soda.

Cordelia lowered the screen of the laptop. "Are you guys sure about this?"

Pike glanced at Amanda, who shrugged. "No," he answered for both of them. "But I don't want to hang around here to see if anyone puts Amanda together with the girl Benny was chasing all these years. And Wes seems to think that the Watcher Council can help us out."

"Okay, now, you see, in my limited experience, the Watcher Council isn't very good at helping. No offense, Wes," she called through the office door.

"None taken," he called back.

"It's a risk," Pike said. "But I don't want anything to happen to Amanda because I didn't know how to help her."

Amanda stuck her tongue out at him. "Oh, and you should spend all your time running from the cops because of me?"

"The two of you are so touching. Really." Cordelia rolled her eyes.

"Anyway, the Watcher Council managed to fake papers and passports and stuff so that I'm now officially Pike Willis, older brother and legal guardian of the brat here. If it doesn't work out, we can light out."

"In a foreign country," Cordelia pointed out.

"We'll be fine," Pike assured her.

Cordelia sighed and checked her watch. "Gunn, ready to drive them to the airport?"

"Yup. Stuff's all loaded." Gunn casually held out an arm and Amanda used it as leverage to jump off the check-in counter.

"I'm leaving you Merrick's books," Pike said. "Somehow I think that these guys will have all the ones they need."

"You think?" Gunn asked. "Not like Angel and English don't have enough books of their own."

Pike smiled at the byplay. The past week had been... fun. The occasional trips out to kick demon butt had been a blast, particularly since he hadn't had backup since Buffy had left LA. Hanging out with the group had been entertaining, to say the least. Amanda had soaked it all up, the attention, the company.

Pike shouldered his duffel bag, glancing up the stairs as he did. Angel was somewhere up there. Pike had gone up earlier to thank him for his help. He grinned wryly. He never thought he'd thank a vampire for anything. \ But his ability to kick demon ass had saved Amanda's life. Even more so his ability to gather friends around him.

Wesley emerged from the office. "Good luck," he said. "And may you do better with the Council than I did."

Pike shook his hand. "Thanks for convincing me. Anyone's life you particularly want made hell?"

Startled, Wesley laughed. "I can say with a certain amount of pleasure that your very existence will make anyone I care to displease very miserable."

"Translation, your ugly American ass will piss them off to no end," Kate added. She nodded briskly at Pike and shook Amanda's hand. "Good journey, guys. Don't forget to write."

Cordelia bent down and hugged Amanda, who squirmed with pleased embarrassment. "Thanks, kid. You look much better without glowy eyes and sharp teeth, you know." She straightened up and faced Pike. "Well," she said, and stopped.

"Well," he said. Shrugging, he couldn't think of anything else other than, "Bye," and turned to head out the front door.

Almost there, he stopped. "Oh, hell, I have to," he said, dropping his bag.

Turning, he strode across the lobby back to Cordelia. Before she could react he grabbed her, dipped her deep, and kissed her hard enough to have the bells ringing in his ears.

When he brought her upright again, she stumbled a bit, and blinked at him. "What the hell was that?" she demanded.

He grinned at her, and stole another quick kiss. "I have always wanted to do that." Behind him, he could hear Amanda dying of giggles. "See you around," he said casually.

Recovering his bag, he put his hand on Amanda's shoulder. He'd made sure she was safe, he was making sure she'd be taught, and he'd had the last word with Cordelia Chase.

All in all, Pike decided, it had been a good week.

THE END


End file.
